Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Yelping Yelp

There’s a new restaurant that I’m looking forward to trying. The menu looks interesting; the chef is good; I’m thinking this could be fun. Unfortunately I make the mistake of mentioning the restaurant to a friend, who proceeds to tell me he “Yelped” the place, and guess what? Seems the Yelpers have given the restaurant more bad reviews than good ones. Ok I say, who gives a crap about Yelp, I'm going and making my own opinion.

Who writes these reviews anyways? Well my friends I’m going to tell you who.............. For the most part complete idiots!!!! People who don’t know the first thing about food or the restaurant business. Small minded jerks that given a forum to vent do just that. Yelp thinks it provides a service?? HAHAHA, Yelp is a joke. Right or wrong Yelp gives people the power to play with a business future and not in a good way. Go ahead check out any restaurant on Yelp. Look at the reviews, and pay attention to the screwed up ramblings of Yelpers. One person says they like it and then it almost becomes a cyber competition to contradict the positive. Complaints so lame that you almost want to laugh at… almost. The food was great but my boyfriend couldn’t keep his eyes off the cocktail server so I’m giving it 1 star. Loved everything, but because I’m a pig, I’m giving it 2 stars because the portions were too small. 4 stars I thought the portions were just right. The food was great but the service sucked. We brought this to the owners’ attention and he comped the whole tab for us and gave us a gift certificate, so I’m giving them 2 stars. 1 star the lighting in the restrooms wasn’t bright enough, but the food and service were great. This is Yelp!! Supposed to be helpful to the consumer, yeah right, helpful only to the consumer that has no life. Written by people that don’t know or understand the restaurant business from a hole in the ground. People who think fast food is real food. People who don’t know restaurant etiquette, who think it’s ok to enter a restaurant and ask to be seated while sipping on a Starbucks Frappuccino. Or my personal favorite, bringing their own water to drink while having a cocktail at the bar. You know who you are!! Yeah you... the person that tips $3 on a $50 tab.

Now I’m not saying all Yelpers are this bad, just the vast majority of them. The good ones actually seem to know what they’re talking about and then provide positive or negative feedback to the managers and owners even before Yelping, now that’s a service, that’s Helping! The others hide behind a computer screen trying to seem more important than they are or ever will be. You see friends, I can’t Yelp the incompetent jerk who works in cubicle #24 at a business that doesn’t get Yelped. I most certainly can’t Yelp the ass bite that just used Yelp to bad mouth my restaurant, because he was 1 1/2 hours late for a 7pm reservation on a busy Saturday night, after we gave his table away to a walk-in, only after trying to call him to confirm the reservation, and find out the number he booked under is disconnected.

You get my point!! All the true diners don’t write on Yelp; if they love the place then they return and tell friends. If they hate the place they don’t return. In other words they don’t try to put a business out of business. Yelp has not and never will put their heart and soul for 30 years in an industry that is arguably the toughest business there is to make money in. Yelp is nothing more that a cyber bullying site, controlled by dim witted consumers. Yeah that’s right I said it and I mean it. They provide a forum to those punk ass induhviduals that don’t have the guts to put what they do on the line day after day. I give Yelp no stars, and ask… is there anyone who wants to build a website that allows public comments to the Yelpers’ reviews?

1 comment:

I was having trouble deciding which restaurant to take my girlfriend to for her birthday...and you're right! Yelp is able to give me an idea of what a restaurant will be like, but one bad review seems to taint my opinion.

I will usually use yelp to help me find restaurants in a particular area with certain cuisine, then try (try!) to ignore the angry posts and concentrate on the posts that have more substance.

Based on this post I'll be taking her to your restaurant this coming Tuesday!

About Me

Chef Clyde Griesbach is Executive Chef at Vero in Palo Alto, California.
His carreer spans over 30 years starting as a line cook on Hawaii's big island and then working through multiple european kitchens and Italian country restaurants. He spent 12 years as Executive Chef at San Jose's Landmark Italian Restaurant Paolo's, and was then part of the opening team at Azur in Santa Cruz. 2002 marked his entry in downtown Palo Alto with the opening of Lavanda.
He now continues his tradition of "elevated country cuisine" as he refers to it, at 4 year old Vero in downtown Palo Alto. "I try to do as little as possible to the food itself" says Chef Clyde, "I centralize on the main ingredient and supplement with ones that tend to enhance rather than mask."
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and do not represent Vero, or its owners.